Fortunes and Perils of Beauty: the Women of Bernardim Ribeiro's Menin

Maria João Dodman 390 (Mis)Fortunes and Perils of Beauty: the Women of Bernardim Ribeiro’s Menina e Moça Maria João Dodman York University A woman is beautiful to look upon, contaminating to the touch, and deadly to keep ([Kramer & Sprenger] Malleus Maleficarum 46). Introduction Beautiful women abound in literature. In fact, ‘the beautiful one’ is a recurring character that crosses a wide variety of literary genres, authors, periods and cultures. By simply being beautiful she commands and captivates the looks and desires of all those who cross her path. Indeed, her beauty often occupies central stage and gives rise to a series of plots whose ultimate objective is to conquer and possess such beauty. In Renaissance Portuguese literature, these general observations are rather commonplace; from the sonnets of Camões, fuelled by the striking Laura of Petrarch, to Gil Vicente’s theatre, among other writers and genres, beauty presents itself as women’s most enchanting and necessary attribute. Bernardim Ribeiro’s Menina e Moça appears to follow the same pattern. In fact, all the heroines of this novel are exaggeratedly beautiful, and each new character surpasses the beauty of the previous one(s). Nevertheless, beauty is a rather complicated and complex concept; certainly, the above epigram –which does not stand alone1– illustrates that there exists a long- standing set of negative beliefs about women’s beauty. This essay will thus examine the manner in which feminine beauty is presented in Menina e Moça. In doing so, we will expose how the narrative incorporates and reacts to the often contradictory mainstream concepts of feminine beauty. Ultimately, as we shall elaborate, Menina e Moça, becomes a narrative that, above all, exposes, questions and dismantles such concepts. 1 As common as the many praises of beauty, are these negative types of observations. In the chapter “The Sieve of Tuccia” Marina Warner examines the virginal body and its necessary virtues as well as its various allegorical representations. The metaphor of the body as a vessel, commonly used for both sexes, has brought dire consequences for women. Deeply associated with matter and the reproductive processes, the feminine body was ascribed a dangerous, contaminating nature, and its contents horrifying and revolting. Warner cites as an example the Abbot Odo of Cluny, who in the tenth century, asserted the following: “the beauty of a woman in only skin-deep. If men could only see what is beneath the flesh and penetrate below the surface [...], they would be nauseated just to look at women, for all this feminine charm is nothing but phlegm, blood, humours, gall. We are all repelled to touch vomit and ordure even with our fingertips. How then can we ever want to embrace what is merely a sack of rottenness?” (250-51). eHumanista: Volume 19, 2011 Maria João Dodman 391 Menina e Moça, Beautifully Enigmatic Bernardim Ribeiro and Menina e Moça have challenged the critics through the ages. Critics have proposed several interpretations regarding the intention and genre of this work; yet, many, if not all, lack concrete evidence. Helder Macedo summarizes some of the facts and conjectures in his critical edition of the novel. According to Macedo, critics have inaccurately persisted in placing Ribeiro’s work within a biographical and confessional framework that ranges from unrequited love interests to the musings of an alleged mad Ribeiro (11-35). The only undisputed facts remain few. We know that Bernardim Ribeiro was an esteemed and accomplished poet, although he might have fallen out of grace at court before the publication of Menina e Moça. In addition to this novel, he contributed several poems to the Cancioneiro Geral of 1516. Abraão Usque, an exiled Portuguese Jew, published the novel in 1554, in Ferrara. Two other editions followed: one in Évora (1557) and one in Cologne (1559). The authorship of the Évora edition has been questioned, and it appears that Ribeiro was not the only author. The genre of the novel also resists classification. It is a hybrid work that brings together different elements from diverse traditions: the pastoral and the sentimental romances, the novels of chivalry, and even elements from the Cantigas de amigo. The contents of the narrative itself are also enigmatic. The narrator of the story is a nameless and sad young woman, who finds herself in a bucolic setting, in a self-imposed exile. However, her story and the reasons for her exiled are never revealed. An equally sad and also unnamed old woman joins her. The old woman, known as a dona do tempo antigo, also suffers. Again, the reason for her suffering is never revealed although we are informed that she has lost a son. The dona becomes the narrator of tragic tales of distinguished men and women, who once lived on the valley where our protagonists have taken solace: Lamentor and Beliza, Bimarder and Aónia and Avalor and Arima. Theirs are stories of tragic love, suffering, despair and death. The novel ends abruptly, in mid sentence, except in the Évora edition, where Avalor becomes involved in a series of incoherent chivalrous adventures. The fact that the novel was published by Abraão Usque, whose publications focused almost exclusively on Jewish works, has also led critics to propose interpretations based on Judaism. António Cândido Franco and Helder Macedo, for instance, offer convincing arguments that place Menina e Moça as an allegory of the persecution of the Jewish. In these readings, women occupy a distinguished and crucial spiritual role. We will address such role later on. However, and although it feeds of diverse sources, this narrative is quite innovative in terms of its feminine voice, address and concern. A woman’s voice register is certainly not unique, but this narrative “breaks decisively with the hundred- year-old tradition of male narrator-protagonist in the Iberian sentimental romance” (Deyermond 47; see also Cortijo). Feminine voices are also common in the tradition of Cantigas de amigo, where the woman is both speaker and protagonist, a factor that, as Deyermond states, must have contributed to the makings of the heroine in Ribeiro’s eHumanista: Volume 19, 2011 Maria João Dodman 392 narrative (54-55). Yet, Deyermond views Ribeiro’s text as a “radical innovation, [whereas] a woman who is in command of the narrative though not of her emotions, [reorders] artistically the chaos and defeat of her personal relationships” (56-57). In addition, Menina e Moça makes a considerable effort to address women; the young woman considers writing her experiences, but cautions that it is not a book for the cheerful, but for those who have suffered and are sad. Women are identified as the most sad (77-78). The feminine nature of the work is clearly identified in the novel, since “todos os caminhos vão ter a contos de mulheres [e] conto de mulher, não pode deixar de ser triste” (137). Izabel Margato mentions the similarities between Menina e Moça and the Cantigas de amigo in terms of the “consciencialização da alma feminina,” but affirms that “há em Menina e Moça um conhecimento –ainda que hipotético– bem maior em relação às mulheres. Sua psicologia foi mais bem arquitectada e seu papel no mundo mais valorizado” (87). According to Mujica, “the strong feminine –even feminist– element that pervades the first part of Menina e Moça is one of the romance’s most salient characteristics” (71). Thus, having into account the extensive and all-encompassing feminine element of this text, it is not surprising the beauty will then play a significant role. The Paradoxes of Beauty The reality is that, and regardless of Kramer and Sprenger’s condemnation in their influential hammer of witches, beauty acquired a powerful and privileged position during the Renaissance; poetic convention and neo-platonic philosophy declared it to be the outward and visible sign of inward and invisible goodness. The classical concept of beauty includes several universally agreed-upon criteria: “Harmony, perfection, decorum, fruition of divine love, ultimately truth” (Betella 5-6). In the specificity of the Iberian context, we must acknowledge several traditions that have contributed to poetic convention in beauty imagery. In the Galician-Portuguese lyrical tradition, the Cantigas de amigo and the Cantigas de amor are of substantial importance. In the Cantigas de amor, for instance, women’s beauty is “unique and divinely ordained” (Weiss 134). Petrarch’s influence is also widespread and pervasive. Petrarchan imagery is well documented in Portuguese lyric (Lavalle, Moniz); Forster mentions the Portuguese poets, Sá de Miranda (1481-1558) and Camões (1524-80), whose works excelled in petrarchistic concepts (36). It is not surprising to find Petrarchan imagery in Bernardim Ribeiro’s works; he was not only an intimate friend of Sá de Miranda, but he also frequented the same literary and courtly circles. Jorge Alves Osório has found many parallels, especially those that relate to seclusion and silence, between Ribeiro and Petrarch (351-76). The general traits of feminine beauty in Petrarchan imagery consist of physical and spiritual perfection. Her beauty is often praised in metaphorical descriptions, mythological associations, or its effects on the lover (Forster 10). However, although perfect, the lady is unreachable and often cruel (15). In terms of the lady’s physical description, Petrarch’s Laura is never fully eHumanista: Volume 19, 2011 Maria João Dodman 393 disclosed as the canon of beauty is established on the praise of individual female body parts (Bettella 86). Those parts, as John Allen has pointed out, find a fertile ground in the Iberian Peninsula where los poetas del Siglo de Oro nunca imitaron a Petrarca más tenazmente que en la imaginería de la belleza femenina [...]; la fórmula básica es siempre la misma, aunque las variaciones son innumerables.

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